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How does nudeness affect human behavior?
The NYT reports that nude parties are popular at Yale and Brown. One commentator suggests:
“The dynamic is completely different from a clothed party. People are so conscious of how they’re coming across that conversations end up being more sophisticated. You can’t talk about how hot that chick was the other night.”
One senior remarked that the skinny people look ugly. A graduate "describe[d] the parties as an overload of the “liberal college environment where everyone’s talking about unfair conventions, post-structuralism, ‘boxes.’ I don’t know.”
I would expect the parties to be more socially egalitarian, given that clothing cannot be used for social signalling, or for that matter for social concealing. I would expect less flirting, less drinking, less aggressive behavior, less lying, and more social seriousness. These effects should also wear off over time, as people get used to nudity and develop other means of signalling and concealing. Presumably there is informal data on such questions from nudist societies, although such groups may have greater selection biases than nude parties in the Ivy League.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on January 8, 2007 at 10:41 AM in Education | Permalink
Comments
The highly increased amount of eye contact is actually the only uncomfortable part of it. Everything else is much more relaxed. There's way too much social stress involved in most of life. This is a nice break.
Posted by: Blaha at Jan 8, 2007 11:22:55 AM
I would expect more grooming.
Posted by: aaron_m at Jan 8, 2007 12:24:22 PM
You can’t talk about how hot that chick was the other night.
Why not? Is there a gag order?
Posted by: Ken at Jan 8, 2007 12:24:27 PM
I've heard - strictly second-hand - that nude beaches are distinctly non-erotic places. It's probably true for nude parties too.
Posted by: Peter at Jan 8, 2007 12:27:48 PM
"I found that people who would have been considered heavy with their clothes on actually looked better naked. I'm not sure why. And definitely the gaunt look was a lot less attractive."
Nowhere does the article discuss how invite lists are crafted or how "physically egalitarian" these events are or are not.
Color me cynical, but I suspect that many if not most of these events exclude overweight or otherwise substandard physiques, and even for those that don't, those who, e.g., are significantly overweight, decline to attend anyway.
Does staying away from the campus pool make you fat, or does being fat make you stay away from the campus pool?
It's very easy to be immodest when you have nothing to be modest about.
Posted by: KipEsquire at Jan 8, 2007 12:32:33 PM
My college (Harvey Mudd) had a regular clothing-optional party I didn't attend, and another whose dress code was "naked or semiformal" which I did.
One of the trippiest memories of my entire college life was seeing the chair of my department (in, thankfully, a tux) having a pleasant, relaxed conversation with one of my classmates (who was completely naked).
That party was, in fact, quite sophisticated, but I don't know how much you can attribute to the nudity and how much to its being just that sort of party -- semiformal clothing, suave hosts, mixed drinks and no kegs or cheap wine.
Semi-contra Kip, the invite list for this party was fairly open (as I believe was the invite list for the regular clothing-optional party I didn't attend). Actually the college party policy wouldn't permit you to throw a party of any size with a substantially discriminatory invite list. I am sure people self-selected, and in particular people who are uncomfortable being naked wouldn't show up naked. (But in terms of that self-selection, I'm not sure if it would be more accurate to say "it's a bunch of twenty-year-olds; how unattractive can they be?" or "it's a bunch of nerds at an engineering school; how oblivious to their own unattractiveness can they be?")
I agree with Blaha that the eye contact problem is odd. Geeks already use eye contact in irregular ways for signaling, in particular tending to make a lot of it -- but you do have to spend a fair amount of time at first figuring out what to *do* with your eyes. I mean, in normal, everyday life, if you saw a random unclad penis, it would probably draw your attention, but that hardly seems polite under the circumstances. So you have to fight some of your social instincts and figure out what actually *is* polite when your companion is buck-naked (and his companion looks shrivelled and sad about the cold desert night), and you're standing there in an evening gown.
It puts you in a situation which is charmingly outside of normal social rules, which could, I suppose, elevate the dialogue.
And I guess no one really needs the alcohol to relax. Obviously they came pre-relaxed. Though there were some fine shots going down.
Posted by: Andromeda at Jan 8, 2007 12:44:25 PM
The East Coast is so uptight. In Berkeley you have to go to class naked to cause a stir.
Posted by: y at Jan 8, 2007 12:52:22 PM
"I would expect more grooming."
Indeed. My brother is an orchestral musician, and tells the story of
when he was on a tour of Switzerland, playing and staying in five star
hotels. He said the only time other hotel guests didn't look down on
the musicians as members of the hired help, was in the pool where
nobody can see how expensive your haircut is.
Posted by: Alan Little at Jan 8, 2007 1:08:18 PM
Jeez, I am *so* going to the wrong parties.
Posted by: George Dvorsky at Jan 8, 2007 1:17:20 PM
Professor Cowen:
You write, "nude parties are popular at Yale and Brown." Nothing in the article, or in my own experiences at one of those schools, indicates that they are "popular." While they do occur, I suspect that the number of students who have attended one these events is a small percentage of the overall student body. In addition, the number of these parties held every school year can be counted on one hand.
Posted by: golddog at Jan 8, 2007 2:00:11 PM
Nakedness is the great equalizer. When among a group of nude people, nobody knows your social status. There are no badges of rank differentiating Greeks from Geeks. Conversation takes on a new importance.
Physical attractiveness is often based on clothing and accessories. Without these, the real beauty of a person can be seen.
Take advantage of the new-found freedom and visit a nude beach or resort. You'll get a new perspective and a great tan.
Posted by: USAnudist at Jan 8, 2007 2:16:27 PM
Isn't there a large risk for the men in attendance, surrounded by nude women, to be faced with a certain involuntary reaction? Is this a concern? Does it happen? Is the tone of the parties such that it is not cause for embarrassment?
Posted by: kebko at Jan 8, 2007 2:37:42 PM
Kebko: It didn't, er, come up.
Maybe that's because my school was overwhelmingly male so the number of naked women in attendance was pretty small. (And the number of naked men pretty large. That might put a damper on things for straight men, though I'm not a straight man, so what do I know.)
And partly, remember, everyone's desperately trying to keep eye contact somewhere tactful, so you might not notice so much.
But partly...just because people are naked doesn't mean it's a sexual vibe.
Posted by: Andromeda at Jan 8, 2007 2:44:22 PM
Excellent and amusing analysis, Tyler -- although my experience at such parties is limited, I agree with your conclusions. Sexual activity decreases. I will report back with more formal statistics in 4.5 years.
Posted by: Ben Casnocha at Jan 8, 2007 3:37:38 PM
I think we should use this post to also comment on AT's "wild self" post. Spill-over effects.
(Just kidding. But that would be funny.)
Posted by: Trieu Truong at Jan 8, 2007 3:59:47 PM
Nude or semiformal? Where do they set the room thermostat?
-dk
Posted by: Dick King at Jan 8, 2007 4:33:43 PM
golddog - those parties are legitimately popular at Wesleyan, and though the article claims administrators dont like them, I don't recall that being any impediment to their proliferation as of a few years ago.
Posted by: dave at Jan 8, 2007 5:02:27 PM
They may be "socially egalitarian" but they are far less "physically egalitarian". I base this on swimwear parties, and parties that were "strictly crossdressing underwear" but I've can't see why "nude" would suddenly eliminate the inate human need for competition.
Posted by: Patrick at Jan 8, 2007 5:22:17 PM
I think people are less competitive when we're all feeling really vulnerable and insecure together. Though it might not seem that way logically, nude is indeed quite different than barely-clothed.
Posted by: dave at Jan 8, 2007 5:33:45 PM
Dick King -- thermostat? This is southern California, remember. People can barely be bothered to be inside. It was sort of an indoor/outdoor thing and the thermostat was wherever nature felt like :).
Posted by: Andromeda at Jan 8, 2007 7:22:23 PM
Rich people can afford a good surgeon, a gym, a personal coach. With liposuction, tan bed and pilates they will look better than someone au natural, with what his/her genes gave then.
Without clothes some one can still use Channel No 5 or Paco Rabanne. That will signal a higher status than soap and water.
They can be more egalitarians but less freer, in nudist places there are more stringent rules.
Some facts:
In nudist places single males are discouraged to attend. Single women are charge half the price. Most people there are mature couples and young males.
Male men excited are told to leave.
Women are allowed to use towels and bottoms
There are Christian nudist camp.
Posted by: jcm at Jan 8, 2007 11:00:55 PM
having been to multiple of brown's naked parties, i can say with certainty that tyler cowen's conjecture about likely modes of behavior at these parties is mostly dead on. there is less aggressive behavior, better conversation. people were still getting totally wasted though. nevertheless the whole experience was thoroughly unerotic. dancing was far more demure than at your average kegger. more hooking up happened at pretty much every other party i've ever been to. and i found out two facts of import: 1) my friend J did not look good naked and 2) my friend jake, a skinny jewboy if there ever was one, was hung like a moose.
Posted by: Moe Levin at Jan 9, 2007 2:42:35 AM
well what is normal signalling at parties?
Parties are for meeting new guys and friends and have a few laughs and to flirt with girls. All you really have on display at a normal party is your personality, pretty much. Why would that change because of nudity?
Likely males, "the aggressive flirters" are going to look less flattering, so they will display more of personality.
what are the characterisitcs of people that attend these and why are they there?
likely these people have common traits like open mindedness, experimenting, etc that make them go there. so likely they are going to bond based on these common traits. i expect frivolous flirting/casual sex to be less and more "serious relationships" to come out of these parties. i imagine people will talk more about things that are really important to them. this would include social seriousness. i am not convinced there will be less lying esp. to the opposite sex. The insecurities that make people lie will still remain.
Less aggressive behaviour for sure to keep a distance and from keeping the interaction from becoming uncomfortable.
Drinking: I dont see why people who want to flirt will drink less.
Posted by: KK at Jan 9, 2007 5:17:29 AM
Was there a particular reason "nudeness" was used instead of "nudity"?
Posted by: Constant at Jan 9, 2007 5:48:31 AM
Why can't they fit a tail and climb up the campus trees? Naked monkeys!
Posted by: Samy at Jan 9, 2007 9:23:29 AM
